John’s Blog

Download Flash (YouTube) videos

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:52:28 +1100

You Tube is fantastic. A wealth of Funniest Home Videos. It also has zillions of useful lectures, informative videos and other stuff I just want to keep. But you can’t. They play in a window and don’t download to your computer - easily.

There are several good programs for downloading YouTube videos. There are browser plug-ins and all sorts of crap.

If you have a Mac, you don’t need any of them. Its built in.

Use Safari. Play the video you want, press Command-Option-A and you get an activity window showing what Safari is doing right now. Find the biggest file it is downloading and double click on it. That will download the file to your downloads folder. It usually has a stupid name like “Get Video”, rename it to something meaningful and add “.FLV” to the end of the name. Select “opens with” and pick Quicktime Player as the program to open it. Done.

This works on any Flash video site, not just YouTube.

Check out the “Google Talks” series on YouTube. These are lectures at Google’s offices by prominent speakers. Usually really good stuff. FREE

Become an American today!

Sun, 2 Nov 2008 15:17:17 +1100

I love my country but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be an American. I mean you would have real TV, real Internet and best of all you could use services like Audible or Hulu.

Audible is incredible. They make audio versions of books, magazines and the likes. You can listen to a book while driving.

Hulu streams TV programs over the Internet. Miss the latest episode of House? No problem, just watch it on Hulu. Free. Bloody marvellous.

But the catch is you have to be in the USA. And we’re not. or are we?

I found this lovely utility called Hot Spot Shield. It is designed for privacy when you have to use public Internet such as a coffee shop WIFI hotspot or a library or online access centre or hotel or anywhere else you don’t have control over the Internet. It works by using a secure VPN back to Hot Spot Shield (in the US) and then feeding in the Internet from there. So no matter how in-secure your Internet, everything is still encrypted and safe.

The added side benefit is that all your Internet appears to come from the USA and magically Hulu and Audible and presumably every other “USA only” site thinks you are in the land of the free and works perfectly. oops. Don’t tell anyone.

So if you find you can’t access a site because you are not an American, just pop over to www.anchorfree.com and grab HotSpot Shield, its free. Works with any form of Internet. Your own home or office included.

It is ad supported so you will see ads on the top of your screen while you are using it. Big deal, its free and they have to pay for it somehow.

So join the USA today. Your Internet needs you!

www.audible.com

www.hulu.com

Stores Online back again

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:40:42 +1100

My old mates (NOT!!!!!) at Stores Online are back.

Even after dobbing them in to the ACCC last visit, they still kindly sent me an invite to this round of brain washing.

If you got one too, they make great fire lighters.

Don’t go, whatever you do, just don’t go.

Netspace to the rescue!

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:58:33 +1100

Hot news: Netspace is negotiating with Aurora for use of the Bass Link fibre optic cable. They are very close to having it solved.

They are also installing their own DSLAMs into some local exchanges.

This will give them a better conduit back to the mainland and the ability to offer ADSL 2+ in Tasmania once again. Hitler will be happy! A “Telstra free” solution.

Friggin’ beauty! Best news for broadband in Tasmania in ages. (Can you tell I’m excited?)

Telstra - scum of the earth?

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:32:10 +1100

Now I admit that I have a passion for bagging Telstra. It is a national sport after all. But after my own experiences with the dopey big Aussie telco, I think I’ve earned the right to have a whinge now and again.

This latest raspberry is the result of the simple act of asking if I could change my broadband plan, please Sir. I happened to notice that Telstra had released some new plans and thought I might switch. I just forgot that my file is clearly marked “dick head” and I will always be treated in accordance with this instruction.

So after only 30 minutes I was put through to someone who couldn’t help me but knew someone who could. Another 10 minutes and I had an actual empowered individual who easily changed the plan for me. Easy. But then she noticed the dick head flag and casually mentioned that I would be charged an extra $41.25 per month for the remainder of my contact (12 months) as a penalty for breaking said contract.

Hang on a minute, that can’t be right? I mean I had contracted to keep the service for 2 years (in gratitude for them discounting an $800 card that I could have bought for $100 down to the $300 that I paid to get into the contract) and I wasn’t asking to cancel, I just wanted to change the plan. And I specifically remember being told I could.

So the quest to get out of the penalty began.

Surprisingly after a call to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) and being issued an official complaint number (as well as the secret 1800 number that actually gets answered by Telstra) everything was sorted.

It only took an hour to fix the stuff up. So I had achieved the miracle of saving a few bucks and getting more data and it only cost 2 hours of my life.

Seriously, those stupid bastards wouldn’t know customer service if it bit them on the ar-Sol.

LMFAO - if it wasn’t so true!

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:17:50 +1100

All other ISP’s in Tasmania have stopped rolling out new ADSL 2+ services because Tel-Scum has them over a barrel with the back haul to the mainland. They are getting ripped off by Telstra so they won’t play in our neighbourhood.

This video explains it perfectly.

Warning - adult content. Click “read more” PLEASE.

Get more out of Google

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:15:05 +1100

There’s a truck load of ways to improve your searching on Google. See www.google.com/help/features.html for the full scoop.

Things like getting the weather forecast, share prices, conversions, calculations, maps etc.

My favourite is :site which tells Google to search just the one specific web site for what you want. I use this it like this

error 3 path not found site:support.microsoft.com

to look up error messages on the Microsoft Support site. Just put the error message in front and away you go. Secret of my success. Shhh.

Thanks to Gary at MacMost for this link. His video podcast shows a great demonstration of these Google features. And yes, they work the same on Windows.

Angels on my Ipod

Sun, 5 Oct 2008 16:58:47 +1100

I realised a few years ago that there was something important that I had let slip away from my life - music. Those who know me might recall I once worked in a HiFi shop with a record bar attached. Naturally I outfitted myself with a bloody good stereo and plenty of records. Heck, I had my head up my arse about stereo for years. Then I had a recording studio. So music was all around me and part of my daily existence.

Then something happened. Well someone actually. Two small some-ones and the stereo was packed away lest a toddler destroy the world’s last remaining Thorens TD125 turntable equipped with Grado Series V tone arm and (the late) Garrott brothers hand etched diamond stylus. (see, I DID have my head up my arse)

So music faded away to be replaced with The Wiggles, Play School and Hi 5.

After I split with wife 1.0, I must have been looking a bit run down or something because my wonderful GP suggested I get an iPod. “It’s the sound track to your life” he said. “Put a little music in your day, It’ll do you good.”

So I did.

The first thing you do when you get your first iPod is to transfer (rip) all your CDs onto your computer. This gives you some music to load up onto that cute white slab we call the iPod. This exercise is tiresome. You have to play every CD you own. Of course you then find out how out of date and incomplete your CD collection really is. (Which might have something do do with splitting up the CD collection along with the furniture) But you re-discover some stuff too. Things you’ve been missing.

One of those things I’ve been missing was The Angels.

I think I’ve told the story of meeting Rick Brewster. The customer that came in to get some data recovered and casually mentioned that he worked in a band called The Angels. Really nice guy. He turned into a regular (a fellow Mac user) and very kindly gave me their re-mastered Face to Face and Tour 2008 CDs.

I remember seeing The Angels at The Red Lion in Hobart in the 80’s. Well I think I remember it. You know what they say, if you can remember the 80’s, you weren’t there!

To say they are an Aussie icon is an understatement. So many classic songs. The re-master is great and I highly recommend it.

They’re touring again but Rick’s not so sure they can make it to Hobart. If they do, I’ll be there. I’m hoping to talk him into an interview for my podcast, What the Photon.

Go out and find your music, people. Grab an iPod and load it up. Your music belongs in your life, not on the shelf.

Photo brazenly stolen from www.theangels.com.au but for all the right reasons.

Old software

Sat, 4 Oct 2008 05:56:50 +1000

I spent two days and the better part of my sanity fixing an old mail server for a customer. It was Windows 2000 so that makes it 8 years old. If dogs are 7 years for every human year, computers are more like 25. Normal life span is 3 years. That applies to hardware, this was old software.

Now there’s the “if it aint broke” way of thinking and I agree, we shouldn’t jump on Microsoft’s upgrade cycle just to make that company richer. But there comes a time when every dog has had its day. I think 8 years is past it for server software.

That said, we use an 18 year old application at work and probably wont change any time soon.

The concern with server software that old is that Microsoft have already given up on it. There are no more security fixes being written.

So have a think about your software and if its ancient, do something about it. In all modesty I consider the repair I did that day to be a minor miracle. I didn’t expect it to work. That company very nearly lost it. I shudder to think of the economic impact that would have had on them.

Old servers can be a time bomb.

Why isn’t my email getting through?

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:09:14 +1000

Spam is a problem, a really big problem. About 75% of all email is spam. Someone has to do something about it and they are.

One of the initiatives out there is “black listing”. This is a list of all the known spammers. By checking with the black list first, your mail server can see if the email is from a known bad guy and if so, ignore it. Nice idea in theory.

In practice, there isn’t one black list, there are dozens. All maintained by different companies for different reasons. They all have their own criteria for black listing someone and there are few common rules. Anarchy.

Second problem is how to black list someone and for what reason. You can end up on a black list quite easily.

Once you are on a black list, SOME people will not be able to receive email from you. Only people who’s mail server checks with the particular black list (that you are on) will be affected.

Next problem is that you need to know if you have been put on a black list. Few of them bother to tell you. You just wonder why your email stops getting through.

Then there is the problem of getting off the black list. Some of the lists are maintained by volunteers and getting off the list is really hard work. Of course if you were put there for a reason (like you had a virus) you have to fix the problem or you will just go back on the list again.

My biggest objection to black listing is that most of the spam is coming from infected machines in robot networks (see bot nets) and so there can be around a million individual PCs spewing this stuff out at any one time. They don’t get black listed quickly enough and then as the PC gets rebooted it gets a new IP address and the problem shifts. Its like trying to map rain drops in a weekly newspaper!

In short, black listing is a growing problem. It isn’t helping with the spam problem all that much (in my humble opinion) and it IS causing problems and blocking mail. Bummer.

iPhone repair

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:23:36 +1000

I’m devastated. My poor iPhone had to go in for repairs. It was working so well, no problems at all. Then I did the 2.1 firmware update. Now the battery lasts 2-3 hours and the calls drop out a lot. Bugger.

The update was supposed to fix those problems. But I didn’t have them in the first place. So it gave them to me. Oops.

So I called Apple. No waiting, no delay. Easy. The first guy I got suggested I restore the phone, which I did. Twice. It takes a while. Then I called back and the second guy quickly read the case notes, asked a few questions then decided it would need to go in. He even apologised. Then he sent me a web link which printed a label and barcode. He asked me to take the phone to my local post office with the sheet (I had just printed) and they would take it from there. Which they did. Packed and sent with no fuss at all.

Now I wait. Estimated 7-10 business days.

Google Chrome

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:56:49 +1000

What the photon is Google Chrome?

It’s Google’s free web browser. I keep banging on about how you should NOT use Microsoft Internet Explorer to surf the web. IE (the big blue E on your Windows desktop) remains the most dangerous browser as it is susceptible to malicious web sites and is an easy path to infect your computer. Just view the wrong web page and you’re toast.

There are numerous other web browsers you can use. The darling of the industry is Mozilla Firefox. Other popular choices include Flock, Opera and Apple’s Safari which is also available for Windows. Safari is based on Web Kit, an open source software kit for web developers. Which brings me to Chrome, which is also based on Web Kit.

At this stage, Chrome is only for Windows. So I haven’t tried it. So why am I writing about it? Well you need to know its out there. Its very early days and I’m sure it will have bugs. But it is very promising and if anyone can pull it off, Google will. I expect this will be a widely used browser very quickly.

The IT industry pundits are all speculating as to why Google decided it needed to do a browser. And the current theory is that with their push to cloud computing Google is looking for a standard, stable platform to deliver high quality web based applications. Once they get the browser working right, they can push Google Docs, Google spreadsheet and Google calendar.

The problem with IE, well one of the problems with IE, is that it is NOT a standards based browser. Where Microsoft thought better, they ignored standards and did their own thing. As IE got widely accepted when it won the first browser war some years ago, then web sites moved to work well with IE and away from standards. So we ended up with a web where lots of the sites were specifically designed NOT to support web standards. This is bad.

So Google pushing standards is a good thing. We might get the web fixed.

Watch this space.

Quick review - Mercury Artisan Cider

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:20:17 +1000

So what the Photon has cider got to do with technology? Absolutely nothing as far as I know.

I saw an ad for this new cider while on the plane during our recent holiday. Well actually I saw this shopping guide and it had best buys in Hong Kong including a $15,000 bottle of scotch. And I love scotch but can’t believe any bottle of anything is worth fifteen grand. Then I spotted the ad and that started a hankering for cider.

So I bought some and drank it. It’s nice. I claims to be 5.5% but then I’ve claimed to be the Queen of Sheeba on occasions and that didn’t make it true. I suppose it must be ( 5.5% that is, not the Queen of Sheeba) but I didn’t notice.

If you like a sweet cider you’ll like Artisan. It’s fresh, crisp and slides down easily. Recommended.

iPhone Security Flaw!

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:59:19 +1000

This is being blogged and reported everywhere so why not here too?

Yeah, the iPhone has a bug that if you lock it with a password, you can bypass that using the “emergency call” feature. Mobiles evidently have the feature that anyone should be able to use them to call triple zero in an emergency, regardless of the lock. Unfortunately the iPhone lets you make other calls using this same bypass. Oops.

Since most people don’t lock their mobile phones anyway, I don’t see it as a big deal. Apple has already said they’ll fix it.

Press reports that it allows access to confidential information are in my humble opinion over blown. Yes they can get at your address book, email and whatever else is on your phone. But they have to have found your discarded phone lying around to do this.

What’s cloud computing?

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:57:27 +1000

Imagine the Internet as a cloud of computers. A big fat cloud made up of billions of rain drops. Each rain drop is a computer.

Now imagine all your data, your documents, files and everything you wanted saved as living in this cloud. Instead of being stored on your computer sitting in front of you, everything is stored out there in the cloud.

The practical upshot is that you can access your data from anywhere. Think of Hotmail. You just need a web browser and you have your email. It doesn’t mater which computer you use, or where you are, you can still get at your email.

That’s cloud computing.

It’ll never work well in Australia until we get truly un-limited access to the Internet. As long as Tel$$$$$tra is in control and we have to pay for every bit send or received, you will be forever thinking of the cost and limiting your use and it’ll just be easier to have your laptop anyway.

The second obstacle is privacy. If your data is sitting on some server elsewhere that you don’t control how do you know it’s safe, private and secure?